JAMIE CARRAGHER says Liverpool FC players felt aggrieved after they were beaten 1-0 by Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium.

Carragher’s challenge on Jon Walters in the 20th minute led to the game’s only goal, with Walters converting from the penalty spot.

But Liverpool themselves were angered after referee Mark Clattenburg failed to spot handballs in the penalty area by both Rory Delap and Matthew Upson.

Carragher believes Stoke’s penalty was a harsh award, and says his team-mates were adamant that they should have had at least one penalty themselves.

“Going off what the lads have said, they are adamant we should have had a penalty,” said Carragher. “I was too far away to see. But we have had one go against us and a couple not go for us today, so we are a bit aggrieved.

“At the time I thought their penalty was harsh. I haven’t seen it again and will need to have a look before I make a judgement. It might have been or it might not have been.

“We’ll go back disappointed because we wanted to come here and get three points. We performed quite well and when you do that you normally get three points. But that’s football. That’s the Premier League. It was Stoke’s day today but we can be quite pleased with how we performed.

“Hopefully if we play like that against Spurs next week we’ll get something.”

Stewart Downing believes Liverpool can take heart from their overall performance after they dominated for large periods, but wasted a clutch of second-half chances.

“I thought we played some decent football,” Downing said. “We were unlucky and on another day we would have put our chances away, but it wasn’t to be.

“I’m not sure whether it was a penalty or not for their goal, but maybe we should have had one ourselves.

“I played the ball to Luis (Suarez), and although I couldn’t see the incident from where I was standing, the lads were saying it was a stonewall handball afterwards.

“It was frustrating, but credit to Stoke, they made it hard for us.”

Liverpool travel to Tottenham next Sunday looking to bounce back from their first defeat of the campaign, but Downing believes there is no need to change their approach to the game.

He added: “The manager said to us after the game to keep doing what we’re doing.

“I don’t think there was a lot wrong with our performance – we played quite well.

“Stoke is a difficult place to go, but at times we played some good football and cut through them.

“It was one of those days and we couldn’t hit the net, but hopefully we’ll be able to do it at Tottenham next week. We’ve just got to keep doing the same things.

“We’re frustrated, but it was positive that we were able to create chances, were still passing and moving, and trying to do the right things.